Monday, April 12, 2010

14.30 G-d's Green Earth

Four am and I'm looking up at the Big Dipper through veils of smokewhisps of steam from a hot bath over rocksthis is what we do out here for funthe others are laughing, drinking, getting highI am on the side of the frame againputting my ears underwater to hear my own thoughtsblood rushing outside my ears for once from the water.

Before tonightthere was this afternoonred streaked cheeks asking me about faithspirituality, how can I believe in a fairytale G-da wrathful onea detatched fat man smiling maniacly at buffet restaurantsor a pagan appropriated hair product for sheen figure?Too many wretched events march on without a coming againor a princess lotus blossom of tranquility unfolding.How---how can there be any force greater thanthis planet spinning in an unknowable sea of blackness?

Lying in the bath, looking up at what we call constellationsI feel the familiar panic rising up from my chestflowering in my throat and headmy own drum skipping beatsI, too will die and disappearinto...what's the answer?The prickle comes, bursts,yawns a swallowing mouth akin to fear around me.

What I didn't tell her is that my faith lies in the momentof my mortality spellgoing away.The fact that it is temporary and leavesmay be a rational gracea tick of a clockthe fall of a raindrop on a leafthe very-few hours lifespan of a butterflythe cicada's 17yrs of underground living, just for the chanceto rise, molt,and fuck.

How can I have explainedthe myriad of ways a body knows how to leavesystems turning out the lightsthe way when a body drowns, it fightsor when a shell falls, the neck breaksso there isn't any consciousness?

My faith doesn't have interventionor rely on reason for being as muchas design, fractalas much as life forceseasonal shift, perpetual recyclingthe fact of a deer sitingthe book opening to the exact page you neededfor a memorial servicethe way ghosts talk back to youthrough other people & what happens when you think of them.

None of my answersare comfortable.My mosaic is not what I expressed

Instead, I lent her my arms for vertebra quakeand the unrolling salt tide.I said something about the persistence of greenthe celebration of colors in spring& how there are just some answerswe're just not meant to receive until we trip over them.

We have each otherdry twigs for bonfiresvices to dull our sensesand jackal laughterin the meanwhilewith the elements until we join them.